Typography Tips and Tricks–Curly Vs. Straight

Apr 18, 2017

Did you know there’s a difference between curly and straight? I’m not talking about hair…haha! I’m talking about typography.

It’s somewhat simple—apostrophe’s are curly, foot marks are straight. Quotes are curly, inch marks are straight. People get it wrong all the time. Jeopardy, for example, always has straight apostrophe’s in its clues. (I’m looking at you Alex Trebek. Mr. Smartypants should seriously know better, right?) It makes me kind of cringe to be honest. But if you’re a designer, there are a few easy ways to make sure you use curly when you should.

InDesign allows you to change from straight to curly. You can just click on the Type dropdown menu. Then click Insert Special Character and navigate to Quotation Marks. I find it slightly annoying that when you import text into InDesign the marks sometimes default to straight. But you can also do a Find and Replace to change them globally.

Illustrator also allows you to change straight to curly. Click on the Type dropdown menu. Then click on Smart Punctuation. You can change just the selection from straight to curly or the entire document.

So there you have it. Get your curly on without an iron whenever you need it! Now go create!!!

Check back for more Tips and Tricks or sign up below to receive my blog posts in your inbox. And be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook.